It was still shy of noon when Cane rode through the narrow pass—the boundary to the forbidden valley.
A makeshift barrier marked the entrance, little more than a sagging wooden fence reinforced with scattered stone. Nearby stood a weather-beaten sign. The image was crude: a half-man, half-demon figure, sharp claws raised in menace.
DANGER: TRIPIDS
Cane snorted. "Tripids, huh?"
The story had kept him out as a child. Scared him enough to never test the edges. Vel, the Academy librarian, had called them a myth. Telamon too.
"I'm going to be a little disappointed if those two were wrong."
He nudged the gray pony forward, circling the barrier where it had partially collapsed—but the moment they crossed, the mount froze.
Cane frowned. "What is it?"
The pony refused to move, muscles tight, head trembling.
He touched his falconer rune, searching for threats—but found nothing.
HOAAACH.
Pudding swooped down from the sky, landing silently on the broken fence. Moxie had already retreated, tail low, settling beside the bird. Both refused to follow.
Cane swallowed, the air colder now than it had any right to be. The chill had sunk into his bones and refused to leave.
He couldn't blame them.
"Fine," he muttered. "Guard the pass. Don't let anyone follow me."
He dismounted, tied the pony loosely to a crooked post, and stepped beyond the veil—alone.
Fog seeped up from the earth, hovering shoulder-high. It clung to everything, thick and choking. Visibility dropped to almost nothing.
Cane pressed on, watching the sky for direction, keeping the sun on his right shoulder. Each step felt like he was walking through memory—unreal, weightless, distant.
After several hundred meters, the fog thinned, and the cold faded.
He stepped through.
The valley spread before him.
What should have been lush was instead dead.
Nestled between fertile hills, the basin was scorched—sand and stone, nothing more. The temperature climbed unnaturally, dry heat prickling his skin.
Then he felt it.
The pull.
Cold Iron.
The sensation slammed into him—ancient, undeniable. It called to him like a scent to a hound, magnetic and all-consuming.
He ran.
The feeling grew stronger, each step a tether yanking him closer.
The valley ended abruptly at a sheer granite wall, flat and unbroken—except for a narrow passage, less than a meter wide.
Cane cursed under his breath, dropped to his hands and knees, and summoned his dual aspect. The twin stars on his chest pulsed, casting silver and blue light into the darkness.
His heart raced, faster than it should have. It wasn't just nerves—it was unnatural. Frightening. A feeling beyond control.
He crawled forward.
After several long minutes, the passage opened up. A vast cavern swallowed him whole—empty, silent, and impossibly still.
At its center stood a single block of metal.
Perfect. Untouched. Eternal.
Cold Iron.
No Tripids. No guardians. No traps.
Just a cube—twenty meters across, smooth and seamless.
Cane approached, drawn like a magnet. His breath came faster, more ragged. His footsteps slowed.
The closer he came, the less he felt.
Something was wrong.
His hair began to turn white.
His skin grew dry and weathered, tightness fading into wrinkles. Vision dimmed, joints ached. Age rolled over him like a tide.
He took another step.
Looked down at his hand—spotted, veined, frail.
"What's going on?"
His voice cracked, old and brittle.
Still, he stepped forward.
"It's too late to stop."
Each footfall hurt now. Pain bloomed in his chest, his knees threatened to buckle. But he didn't care.
This was his calling.
This was the truth.
Maybe he was the last.
The last true metallurgist.
"The metal is my world."
He took the final step, heart hammering, and placed both hands against the Cold Iron.
The old man that was Cane barely brushed the surface of the Cold Iron before he vanished entirely.
The metal didn't reject him—it embraced him. Like a mother gathering a child close.
The world glowed.
His frail body moved forward, weightless. He was inside the element. Not a spiritual vision—this was real. Physical. Elemental.
Currents of power swirled around him, brushing his limbs with enough force to stagger. Nodes flared into view—dozens, perhaps hundreds. Some solid colors, some two-toned. All living.
And above him, the twin stars of his aspect blazed brighter than they ever had before.
Then—
"Who comes here?"
Cane turned, seeing nothing. Expecting nothing.
Still, he answered.
"Cane Ironheart. Metallurgist."
A man appeared.
Young. Strong. Three aspects hovered over his back, each shaped like a hammer. At their center, a glowing white core pulsed—steady, alive, like a heart of metal.
The man's face brightened with a brilliant smile.
"My grandson. Cane Ironheart?"
"Grandson?" Cane's breath caught. He knew this face.
It was the boy from his dreams—the one submerged in Cold Iron.
"Your parents placed you inside," Cane whispered.
The man nodded. Their resemblance was undeniable.
"I am Philas Ironheart. I hoped that, one day, someone from our line would receive the bloodline training... and find their way here."
"Philas was my father's father," Cane said softly.
Philas's face grew hopeful. "And how is my son?"
Cane looked down. "He and my mother... died. The plague."
Philas stepped forward and gently gripped Cane's withered hand.
In the next instant, they were elsewhere.
Lush trees. Fragrant blooms. The babble of a brook. And beneath it all, the steady rhythm of a hammer striking metal.
Paradise.
"They're gone?" Philas asked—not quite grief, not quite peace in his voice. "Recently?"
Cane shook his head. "A few years ago."
Philas's brow furrowed. "Then why aren't they here?"
"I just told you—they've passed."
Philas's eyes narrowed. "Ignorance."
Then, more softly: "They're buried nearby?"
"Behind the house I grew up in."
"The house I built," Philas murmured. He reached out with senses Cane could only imagine, his expression shifting. "What metal were you gifted?"
"Gifted?" Cane blinked. "I... embedded a spiral of starmetal into my palm a few months ago."
"Only a few months?" Philas looked up, studying the twin stars above Cane. "Amazing. Twin stars... with a developing red core. Your potential is incredible."
Cane didn't feel incredible. He felt ancient.
"I'm an old man now," he said. "There's no way I can face them—my friends, Sophie—like this."
Philas threw his head back and laughed—not a chuckle, but a full, echoing belly laugh.
"Cane. Cold Iron has will. It tested yours. Had you turned back, you'd be a skeleton outside the cavern. But you passed."
"I feel like I'm as old as dirt."
Philas wiped his eyes, still smiling. "You're very likeable, grandson."
A pause.
"Are you really from the First Rise of Man?" Cane asked.
Philas nodded. "My parents trained me even as the world tore itself apart in the Archmage Wars."
"Are they responsible for the dreams?"
"No. That was me. The training was only ever meant to put you on the path—and bring you here."
"Well," Cane muttered. "That worked."
But a pang tugged at his chest. Would he never see the others again? Was this the end of that chapter?
Philas's tone shifted. "We have work to do, Cane."
Cane gave a weak smile. "Not sure what I can offer."
"Fetch your parents," Philas said. "Bring them here."
Cane blinked. "What?"
Philas's eyes were solemn. "I know the task is distasteful. But I placed spiraled Cold Iron in their palms when they were young."
"So... they were metallurgists?"
"No. My method is far older than the rites of priests. Even without talent, as long as they carry our blood, I can forge a bond—dormant, but real."
Cane's jaw set. "I'm not digging up my parents."
**
Cane grumbled under his breath as he moved the rocks from the mounds behind his childhood home. His return from Cold Iron had been anything but ceremonial—Philas had simply shoved him out.
Leaving the metal felt like leaving home. But with each step away, his body had grown stronger, the stiffness peeling away like old bark. By the time he reached the surface, he felt like he'd just woken from the best sleep of his life—rested, whole, young again.
The fog was gone. So was the dread.
Moxie and Pudding found him moments later.
Pudding swooped down and landed squarely on his shoulder.
"Nope. I can't look at you." Cane turned his head away, voice low with mock betrayal. "Making me come here by myself. You two are a couple of goldfish."
Moxie's tail tucked immediately, and she slunk toward him, posture low. Pudding warbled and rubbed his head against Cane's ear, shamelessly apologetic.
After a few minutes of pointed silence, Cane sighed and forgave them both. He sent them off to scout and explore.
Back at the house, Cane found his Da's old wagon and hitched up the gray pony—who looked extremely unenthusiastic about the idea. But it was the only mount available.
With the grave mounds cleared of stones, Cane began to dig.
The task wasn't physically difficult—but emotionally, it was agony. He kept having to stop, walking in slow circles just to breathe. Just to keep from falling apart.
These were his parents. The two people who had given him everything. And now he was clawing through the earth to find what was left of them—maybe bones, maybe little more than dust.
The thought of seeing his mother like that made his heart ache so hard he had to lean against the shovel to keep upright.
He struck something white.
Cloth.
He brushed the dirt back gently, fingers trembling.
Interwoven aluminum.
"Damn it…" Cane whispered. "I thought I invented that."
He cleared more dirt with his hands, slowly, reverently. Of course his grandfather had developed the technique long before Cane was born.
As he uncovered the wrapped bodies, he expected to find fragility. Collapse. But what he felt was... weight. Substance.
They didn't feel like skeletons. They felt present. Like they had only just passed.
Carefully, Cane lifted each of them into the wagon. His arms shook—not from effort, but reverence.
He returned to the valley.
The gray pony didn't hesitate this time, and Cane cleared enough of the broken barrier for the wagon to squeeze through.
Getting through the Cold Iron entrance with the bundles on his back was the hardest part. He refused to drag them. Wouldn't allow disrespect, even if they couldn't feel it.
This time, Cold Iron didn't test him.
He approached the monolith slowly, one parent resting gently on each shoulder.
He pressed his hand to the metal.
In an instant, Philas grabbed his arm and pulled him into the sanctuary.
"Shit—" Cane stumbled, nearly dropping the bundles.
"Such language," Philas said, gently lifting one of the bodies from Cane's shoulder. His voice softened. "My son…"
Cane set his mother down beside them. "Are you… are you burying them here?"
"Bury them?" Philas smiled.
His entire body rose into the air as the three glowing hammer-aspects behind him ignited—blazing like suns. At the center of them all, the white core pulsed steadily. The heart of a smith.
The cloth began to glow.
The interwoven aluminum unwound on its own, unraveling from the bodies without a single tear.
And beneath the fabric—
Not decay. Not dust.
Two bodies.
Intact. Peaceful. Like they had just fallen asleep.
Cane's lips parted, soundless.
Their skin brightened, color blooming in their cheeks.
A breath.
Then another.
Then—
Gasp.
Cane fell to his knees. His body shook. He couldn't stop it—grief and love, crushed tight for years, spilling all at once.
A gentle hand touched his shoulder.
"Cane…"
His mother's voice.
Warm. Steady. Familiar.
He broke.
A sob tore from his chest as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.
Just like she had when he was a boy.